<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Living for the Dreams of Summer by fujinami19 (ichikuun)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24338098">Living for the Dreams of Summer</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ichikuun/pseuds/fujinami19'>fujinami19 (ichikuun)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Baseball RPF, Sports RPF, ダイヤのA | Daiya no A | Ace of Diamond</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baseball, Hanshin Tigers, M/M, Nippon Professional Baseball, Pro Baseball Player AU, Slow Build, Yomiuri Giants</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:07:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>776</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24338098</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ichikuun/pseuds/fujinami19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Miyuki Kazuya is a catcher for Yomiuri Giants drafted right out of high school after winning the Koshien Tournament 6 years ago.<br/><br/>Enters Sawamura Eijun, a fiery rookie pitcher from the same high school with zero sense of self-preservation. Which should have been a recipe for disaster in Giants' conservative system and hierarchy.<br/><br/>There must be a tear in the space-time continuum, Kazuya thinks, because, against all odds, Sawamura breaks the team, the coaches, the General Manager and one Miyuki Kazuya.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Miyuki Kazuya/Sawamura Eijun</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Living for the Dreams of Summer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The first time the name Sawamura Eijun really registered in Kazuya's head was when he saw the highlights clip of his alma mater making it to the Spring Koshien tournament for the first time since he graduated 6 years ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A southpaw with solid off-speed pitches and a 148km/h fastball made for a strong draft prospect, but what drew Kazuya in was his composure on the mound, to a point of almost coldness. Even when the scores were tied and bases loaded, Sawamura's focus was laser-point on the batter and ended the inning with a pop fly to second base. That was probably just luck, but Kazuya’s got to hand it to the pitcher for being in complete control despite the pressure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Other than the LINE from Mei asking if he's watching Soujitsu in the Spring Koshien (and a highhanded comment about how their team wouldn’t have won if they both weren’t there. Seriously, they’re almost 25 already and Kazuya has no idea how Mei isn’t tired of parading their Koshien win yet), he didn't have much time to think about Sawamura with the pre-season in full swing, but he did promise Mei he'll watch after the pre-season is over.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the end, they lost in the quarter-finals against Sendai Ikuei while Kazuya was just an hour away in Kyocera Dome, warming up for their night game against Hanshin Tigers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He found out only because Ginjiro came into the locker room while he was changing and got him in an inescapable bear hug while cooing, “Don't cry, Kazuya. They still have hope for summer!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Gin-san, if you don't let me go now, I'm going to tell Seiji-san where you hid all his fake cockroaches.”</span>
</p><p>“You wouldn’t! You think they’re lame too!” But Ginjiro loosened his grip anyway and Kazuya ran off to shouts of “You’re expelled from the catcher’s trio, Kazuya!!” behind him. To think that he was the only sane catcher on the first string was not comforting at all.</p>
<hr/><p>Summer came around devastatingly quickly, because Yomiuri Giants can’t seem to pick up momentum at all and they’re running out of time to get their shit together.</p><p>Kazuya’s batting is okay, better than last year’s dismal average of 0.214, but it’s still not good enough for the team because they need more than an ‘okay’ to regain their standings. In between his intense training regime and working out the kinks in their pitching lineup, Kazuya only realised the high school baseball tournament had started when they were scheduled to play the Tigers in Kyocera Dome again instead of the usual Koshien Stadium.</p><p>There was a fleeting thought of the match he watched back in spring. But there are no excited messages from Mei breaking his phone yet. Which could only mean they didn’t get that far.</p><p>Kazuya couldn’t help the twinge of disappointment as a quick search confirmed Waseda Jitsugyo High School lost in the Prefecturals, and swiftly dismissed it as misguided patriotism for his alma mater. You know, empathy for crushed dreams of the youth and all that.</p><p>Anyway, no matter what Kazuya thought, Sawamura might not be picked at all or choose to go to college instead. Even if he was drafted, they might not even be in the same league, much less the same team. They might face off as opponents on the diamond, but that was <em> if </em>the pitcher could even climb up to the first string at all. There was nothing more to be ruminated about it, he decided, and turned his attention to the videotapes of Tigers’ rookie slugger Inoue Kouta making a three-run home run in last year’s Koshien finals instead.</p>
<hr/><p>There was no game on the day of the draft, but Kazuya was in the bullpen anyway, catching the ace Sugano's pitches.</p><p>Nobody on the team pays the draft meeting much mind, unless they’re not in the starting lineup and very much in danger of being replaced by a rookie. The two losses out of three earlier in the week had the locker room in a dark mood and the only thing they could do now was to prepare for the next game and try to make it into the playoffs. It's frustrating, when last year the pennant had come so easily and placing at least second wasn't even a question. The team was hitting a wall with their performance and even with wholehearted pushes from the coaches and GM Hara, it wasn't coming together as well as they had all hoped.</p><p>So it’s the last thing on his mind when he got a LINE from Coach Miyamoto after practice, saying, “We got your junior!!!”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hey, I'm not even a Yomiuri Kyojin fan, but the setting and current team dynamic are too perfect so I can't resist writing these two in. The only major change I had to do was to kill off one of the current catchers, Ohshiro Takumi, and replace him with Miyuki. If Ohshiro was there, realistically, Miyuki would be in the farm team until one of the three first string catchers get injured. Nah, let's just pretend Ohshiro went to an Independent League team with his twin brother or something.<br/>Also, Miyuki and Sawamura's high school is Waseda Jitsugyo, nicknamed Soujitsu and (probably) the real life equivalent of Inashiro.<br/>Please forgive and correct me if some of the terms sound Engrish. I'm a huge Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) and high school baseball fan, but I don't watch MLB unless it's Ohtani Shohei or Maeda Kenta so my knowledge of baseball in English is very sad and poor. But ask me questions about NPB if you're curious.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>